


Over and Over, Again and Again

by TatteredTeddy



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Bio Organic Weapons | B.O.W.s (Resident Evil), Blood, Explosions, Final Battle, Gen, Grieving, Guns, Head Injury, Kidnapping, Lots Of Explosions., Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28736118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TatteredTeddy/pseuds/TatteredTeddy
Summary: Put simply: Karina “Kali” Macauley’s whereabouts during chapters 4 and 5 of RE6. Put not-so-simply: Kali’s fought her own battles before, without anyone coming to help her. Maybe it’s because they thought she was strong enough, or that her battle wasn’t really a hard fight. But this one sure as hell is. And this time, she’s not strong enough to fight.
Kudos: 5





	Over and Over, Again and Again

Kali awakens only a fraction of an inch away from a cold concrete floor. She strains her neck to look upward at the dimly lit and nearly empty room. All she can see is a human silhouette, tall but not physically imposing. It approaches her with slow footsteps, and the dark silhouette registers in her vision as a human, specifically a well-dressed male who looks old enough to be her father.  
  
“Where... am I?”  
  
An unfamiliar face looks down at her. Something about its appearance makes her sick to her stomach. “Don’t worry about where you are. Worry about where your knight in shining armor is instead.”  
  
“Who... who are you?”  
  
“I’m just a friend of a friend.”  
  
“Do I know you?”  
  
“Not yet. But I know you.”  
  
She slowly sits up and attempts to put her hand down to steady herself, only to discover that her hands are tied behind her back. Whoever brought her here, they clearly did it by force. And she’d bet her life that it was this bastard who did it. “How do you know me...?”  
  
“I know everyone, Karina Macauley. Or should I just call you Kali?”  
  
“What—?”  
  
The mysterious figure doesn’t react to her shock at him knowing her name. “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”  
  
“I— I don’t know where I am, or who you are, or why I’m here—! Of course I’ve got questions!”  
  
“Don’t you get panicked just yet. It’ll be more fun if you save it for later. My name is Derek Simmons. I’m the US National Security Advisor. You must not be watching the news lately.”  
  
Wait. Hold on a minute. The National Security Advisor??? This isn’t just some random deranged stranger who’s presumably just kidnapped her. This is an important government official. This is more serious than it looks, and it already looks deathly serious. “What—? But last I knew, I was all the way across the world! What are you doing here?”  
  
“Calm down, calm down. You’re still in the same city you last remember being in. We’ve just got one more stop to make, and then maybe I’ll let one of my agents take you back… alive or dead.”  
  
Kali’s breath catches in her throat. Does that mean… he’s planning to kill her? “What… what have I done to— to get myself here? Did I do something wrong?”  
  
“Oh, you’re just a nice piece of bait for my agents, they’re too nice to let harm befall a civilian. But you knew your decisions would land you here someday, didn’t you?”  
  
“My decisions…?”  
  
“Yes, Miss Macauley, your decisions. You’re a dangerous little one, aren’t you? Always following your heart, and never doing what you should to keep yourself safe. You’re the little sister of some BSAA operative who was killed in action, aren’t you?”  
  
“W-Well, that’s why I’m here, I don’t even know if he’s—”  
  
“And you came here looking for him. What a tragic end to your story.”  
  
“I just wanted to find my brother. He’s… there’s no report of any kind on what happened to him. At least, nothing they’d tell my family. If he really is dead… I want to know what happened to him.” Kali slowly stands up, struggling to regain enough balance so that she doesn’t fall back down, but her efforts are cut off when she’s met with a furious stare.  
  
“Sit back down. _Now. _”  
  
She promptly scrambles back down onto the floor. She doesn’t exactly want to die before anyone could even realize that she’d been taken. “S-Sorry.”  
  
“Good. Now, don’t do anything unless I tell you.”  
  
“I… I won’t.”  
  
Simmons reveals a handgun that’d been sitting in his pocket, twirling it in one hand as he watches Kali’s fearful expression. The plan is not to use it on her… yet. But if need be, if she tries to run away or disobey him again, he’s got backup right here in his hand. “If you’ve been tracking those useless ‘heroes’ for so long, you must have seen my lovely creation, haven’t you?”  
  
Kali tilts her head to the side, waiting for him to explain further.  
  
“Ada Wong. Specifically… my version of Ada Wong. The better version.”  
  
“Ada Wong…” Had she heard that name shouted into the darkness when she was darting through the city alleyways of China? Another target of Simmons, this one smart enough to start running before she could get caught? “Yes… I think I have heard of Ada Wong.”  
  
“Years ago, she worked underneath me. And for all that time, I tried and tried to get the message across that I was in love with her. But she was heartless… and she turned me down every time, until she disappeared off to Raccoon City during the first great outbreak and I never saw her again.”  
  
“I see…”  
  
“So, I took matters into my own hands. I decided to create a new Ada. One who would do my bidding… in every sense of the word.”  
  
Kali doesn’t even need to wonder what he means. She knows a thing or two about men with such intentions. She’d had her fair share of struggles with that type. It had only been a couple of years since the storm in her life subsided, the great hurricane that she weathered for years without a single hand outstretched in support. She still felt the trauma of it every day, every time the smallest thing made her shut down completely.  
  
“She’s exactly what I wanted all along. Not the type who would rebel. Everything I liked about her… without any of that stubborn refusal to just… give… in.”  
  
Kali stays silent. She’s not sure how to respond to this. If she were to be honest, she’d likely be shot dead on the spot. But she couldn’t stand the thought of giving him any sort of fake flattery either. How is he any different than that boy who took away her life, turned her friends against her, left her as just the nameless character in a story that many more graduating classes of equally disturbed boys would remember? She’s horrified by every single thing about this man. He’s the embodiment of everything that stole her friends and what little reputation she had, drove her to run away from her hometown, estranged her from anyone she suspected of having an ulterior motive with her—  
  
All she can manage in response is a quiet “I see.” Her pleading eyes flick upward towards the door, hoping and praying that this nightmare will end soon enough… whatever ending it is that he’s planning for her. Hopefully the “one more stop” Simmons told her she’d be taking would be somewhere out in the open, where someone could see her and come to her defense. Not that she should expect someone to do that for her… but she hopes it’ll happen anyway. A girl can dream, right?  
  
“You think you’re getting out that easily?”  
  
Suddenly, Kali’s lifted off the ground by the collar of her jacket. She fixes her vision on the wall over Simmons’ shoulder, so she doesn’t have to stare at him. She can’t stand to look at him. She can’t detect even the tiniest shred of humanity in his eyes… but of course, no human could do what he’s done. Not just to Ada, but to the world.  
  
“No… I’m sorry about that.”  
  
He ponders her response for a few seconds, his eyes narrowing distrustfully at her. “Good. Now, I have some important business to attend to. I trust that you won’t leave this exact spot… I have security guards watching every inch of this place, and they will not hesitate to shoot you down if you so much as approach that door.”  
  
Kali nods her head, keeping her eyes fixed directly on the floor. “I won’t leave.”  
  
“Good girl. You learn quickly.”  
  
With that, Simmons walks away to another door, which he exits through and promptly slams closed behind him. Kali is completely alone in this room now. For the first time, she can take a minute to look around. She appears to be in a basement or somewhere underground. The floor and walls are all concrete, cracked and dented from years of wear. There’s no windows, and only two doors: the door she looked at before that for her in trouble, and the door Simmons just left through. She doesn’t think she can see any cameras or anything watching her… she might as well stand up and stretch her legs.  
  
Standing is an unusually hard task. Not only are her hands tied behind her back with something that feels like plastic zip ties, but her whole body is filled with an intense fatigue unlike anything she’d experienced even under the influence of the worst sleep deprivation. This exhaustion had to be unnatural, caused by someone who wanted her to be rendered completely powerless. Once she’s gotten her balance, she takes a wobbly step forward and lifts one leg off the ground, extending it straight out in front of her. She can practically feel the blood rushing through it. Thank goodness for her impressive balance too, if she hadn’t been trained so well from years of gymnastics then she may have fallen straight back down and the sound may have alerted Simmons or the guards. She rolls her ankle around a few times and then puts her foot back on the ground, extending the other leg out in front of her and feeling the blood rush through it. She can imagine the network of veins deep inside her, flowing with deep red blood and bringing just a bit of color and warmth back to her icy skin. She takes a few marching steps and then looks down at her feet. Her boots are scratched up and their shine has dulled… what a perfect metaphor for their owner, inside and out.  
  
She moves her feet apart and leans forward, bringing her arms up so her hands are reaching toward the ceiling behind her. Her vision blurs with the rush of blood going to and from her head so quickly, and she exhales heavily as if she’s expelling all the tired air from her body. Her shoulders are tired, but the stretch is so relieving. She lingers in this position for a few seconds, taking deep breaths in and out as some of the numbness in her hands fades away.  
  
As she stands back up and brings her arms down behind her again, her back cracks quite loudly and she lets out an ecstatic groan. She can finally feel her own limbs again. Now, if only she could just—  
  
“Stop right there.”  
  
Kali freezes in place to see Simmons in the doorway, with several of his guards behind him. “W-Wait, it’s not what you think! I was just stretching my legs!”  
  
“I don’t care what it is or what it seems. You’ve disobeyed my orders once again.”  
  
Once again, she is grabbed by the collar and lifted off the ground. Simmons’ furious face is much too close to her for comfort. She can’t stand to be so close to someone so utterly disgusting, inside and out. “I… I’m sorry…” she whimpers. “I just… I wanted to take a look around. I wasn’t planning to escape or anything, really.”  
  
“I told you that you were not to move, and you disobeyed me.” He’s fuming, almost physically. His face is going red like some kind of demon. Kali wants to lean away, but she can’t.  
  
“I’m sorry…” she repeats, just hoping that maybe he’ll have a shred of mercy and not kill her.  
  
“As you should be, Now, I will say it one more time. Do not do anything I don’t tell you to do, or I WILL kill you. I have no hesitations about it. Do you understand?”  
  
“Y-Yes… I understand.”  
  
Kali is suddenly dropped onto the floor and she tips over onto her back before sitting back up like an obedient child. Simmons steps behind her and the guards surround them. For just a moment, there is complete silence, and then Simmons speaks.  
  
“We’re leaving now. You two, take Miss Macauley to the helicopter.” Simmons pulls the zip ties open and Kali’s hands fall free. Her wrists are ringed with stinging red skin, but before she can take a good look at them, two security guards grab her by the arms and drag her toward the door.  
  
“Ow. Ow, please stop… doing that,” she whimpers. Her whole body is throbbing, probably from being manhandled and thrown around when she was taken here. Her pleas are ignored, though, and they just continue frog-marching her out the door and up a steep set of concrete stairs. Kali’s feet drag along behind her, although she tries to put them down and walk along. That would at least be somewhat less uncomfortable than being dragged.  
  
From the stairs out the door or whatever abandoned building she was in, the guards carry her up the stairway into a very official-looking helicopter. “Sit her down,” Simmons orders. “We don’t need her collapsing and turning this into a whole tragedy for my agents to swoop in and save the day.”  
  
The guards shove her into a seat, both of them blocking the way out so she can’t try to climb out. Not that she’s in the physical or mental state to try and make a daring escape, anyway. As the door slams closed and the engine starts to roar, Kali slowly begins to process the events leading to her waking up in an abandoned basement. Now that she’s sitting with her hands free and there isn’t any kind of weapon or camera pointed at her, she can think a bit clearly.  
  
She vaguely remembers how she got here: she was separated from the other survivors she was with and found herself in a dark alleyway, hiding from the swarms of J’avo in the streets. Fortunately, they weren’t quite intelligent enough to find her. However, two men dressed in all black did find her and pulled her out of the shadows, whisking her away, and then… she woke up. That’s all she can remember so far. She vaguely remembered a hand over her mouth: trying to shut her up, or maybe she was chloroformed? If she was drugged in some way, that would explain the gap in her memory. She wouldn’t put it below Simmons either. Maybe they were tracking her, following and waiting for the one moment she wasn’t being watched over so they could take her away. If Simmons knew her full name and why she’d come to China, he must have had some information on her beforehand. So maybe he was planning this all along… oh god, how could she have had a target on her back all along without knowing? She’s usually more perceptive than that. She should have known, right? Something like that… she should have known better.  
  
The thud of the helicopter landing snaps her out of it before she can spend too much time wallowing in her thoughts. The blades slow to a stop as her heartbeat speeds up. If they’ve come to their one last stop, just as Simmons had threatened before… this could be the end of her. Both Macauley siblings going out in a tragic attack, both personal and emotionless… how ironic it would be if she died this way.  
  
She’s yanked out of her seat by the same guards who dragged her in, and then practically thrown at Simmons. “I’ll be escorting her from here,” he says, his voice full of a disgusting fake-formality that made Kali physically wince. As the door opens and the stairs are lowered, she looks out to see they’re in the middle of some gigantic shipping complex.  
  
“Let’s go. Karina, I expect you to be on your best behavior. Don’t you dare try to rush down to my agents and expect them to save you, because they won’t.”  
  
They exit the helicopter and make their way up onto the shipping crates— or rather, Simmons makes his way up, dragging a limp and trembling Kali behind him— and looks out at the city in flames around them. Past the glaring headlights of the helicopter, the entire city seems to be beyond saving. The screams and the distorted groans of the zombie horde reach them all the way from here, one of the few places that hasn’t been completely destroyed.  
  
Kali’s arms are yanked behind her back and the cold metal of a gun comes to rest against the side of her head, waiting impatiently to shoot. “I know how badly you want to escape, but you’re going to wait until my agents show up, and then maybe I won’t hurt you,” Simmons growls. His voice is filled with a disturbing rage, something almost deranged, high on a power trip he’d been riding out for too long. His formal exterior has all but faded away, as he awaits his agents’ arrival.  
  
Kali freezes in place, perfectly still save for her body’s anxious shaking. She just hopes someone will see her… if not the agents Simmons is waiting for, maybe just some random survivor who would be horrified at the sight and tell the police, or maybe one of those BSAA men who’d been evacuating the citizens. She doesn’t care who comes for her, as long as someone gets her away from this monster.  
  
Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice snaps her out of her thoughts and sends her heart racing again. “Simmons… Let go of her!” an angry male voice shouts.  
  
Someone’s here to rescue her. Someone genuinely cared enough to speak up. She looks down to see two people pointing their guns up at Simmons and his men: a man with dirty blonde hair that falls into his face, and a woman with an angry expression. Both have two handguns ready to fire. Kali struggles against the arm restraining her, a panicked whimper escaping her lips. “Sir… sir, please… help… one of you, please…”  
  
For a second, Simmons lets go of Kali and she reaches out toward the pair of strangers waiting to face him, but the barrel of his handgun suddenly strikes the side of her head and she collapses like a ragdoll. Everything starts to spin and her ears ring with a piercing high-pitched sound. A trickle of blood rolls down the side of her face. She hears the man from before shouting at Simmons, along with at least one other voice, but she’s too dazed to make out the words.  
  
“Someone… please…” she whispers. “Somebody help…”  
  
“They won’t come to help you up here.” And then to his men: _“Dispose of them.” _  
  
Oh, god. He’s going to kill the agents, and then kill her. She doesn’t quite see any of the events that follow. All she hears is gunshots bursting through the air, and she thinks she feels herself being dragged. The world moving above her could also be attributed to her head spinning. She only hears the faintest strains of Simmons’ voice, muffled by the chaos. She needs to see what’s happening. Her trembling hands rest on the ground and she tries to push herself up, but she falls right back down. Her vision goes blurry and the lights around her seem to be glowing brighter.  
  
“Someone…? Hello?”  
  
_“Can we wrap this up? I have better things to do.” _  
  
Wrap this up…? Does he mean…?  
  
_“Alert the men outside.” _  
  
Gunshots ring out once again. She’s not sure if it’s from Simmons’ men or the agents. God, she hopes it’s the agents. She rolls over onto her back so she’s looking up at Simmons, although she wishes she could be looking at anything else except him right now.  
  
A J’avo has made his way up onto their perch. Kali would try to scramble up and run away from it, but it doesn’t seem to notice her. It completely ignores her, actually, instead going straight toward Simmons and stabbing him in the side of the neck with some sort of syringe.  
  
_Wait… what? _  
  
_“She got me. Well played.” _  
  
Oh, thank goodness. The J’avo was targeting him. He’s just been injected with something… maybe that virus that’s been mutating all these humans into all sorts of undead beings. Maybe she’ll get out alive… if he doesn’t turn into a BOW and kill her first. But if he’s a BOW, he wouldn’t be aware enough to know that the agents are here to help her, right? This could be her last flicker of hope to escape alive. “Please…” she calls out with the last gasps of breath in her lungs. “Please help…”  
  
As she feels her consciousness fading, her fears of dying up here without anyone coming to help her almost seeming to come true, she’s suddenly lifted up into the air. No… onto something. Something warm and humanlike. She grabs onto it and holds on tightly. “Please… help me…” she whispers to whatever has just lifted her up. She doesn’t even know what it is! It could be a BOW, for all she knows. It doesn’t matter to her. Maybe going out at the hands of a BOW would be easier at this point.  
  
But nothing happens.  
  
A lighthearted chuckle comes from the thing she’s holding onto. It’s a person. She’s holding onto a living, non-mutated person. More specifically, she’s being carried on someone’s back.  
  
“I think she likes me,” the person carrying her remarks.  
  
“I think she’s just scared.” Someone else is here too. A woman, her voice filled with concern underneath an outwardly serious attitude. “Hey… can you look at me?”  
  
Kali’s head flops over toward the voice.  
  
“I guess that’s good enough. Can you tell me your name?”  
  
“...Kali.”  
  
A sisterly-looking brunette woman sets her hand on Kali’s head. “Alright, Kali. I’m Helena, and this is Leon. Stay with us for now, we’ll handle Simmons and keep you safe.”  
  
“‘Lena…” Kali repeats. She likes this Helena person already.  
  
“Yeah… that’s me. We’re gonna get out of here soon. Right, Leon?”  
  
“Yeah, we sure will,” Leon agrees. “I don’t think she’s ever gonna let go of me though. Feels like she’s trying to squeeze the air out of me.”  
  
Helena glares daggers at her partner. “Let her be.”  
  
“Where are we going…?” Kali asks.  
  
“We’re going to take care of Simmons and make things right.”  
  
“Wha—“  
  
“Not you, we’re gonna put you somewhere safe. Or Leon can just carry you.”  
  
Leon sighs dramatically, and the rise and fall of his torso makes Kali giggle deliriously. “I’m sure I’ll end up having to carry her. You good to hold on, kid?”  
  
Kali squeezes Leon tightly again, like when she first realized she was being carried. “I can hold on.”  
  
“Alright, then you hold on tight.”  
  
Leon and Helena take off running and Kali clings on tightly. The rhythmic bouncing hurts her head, so she closes her eyes, trusting that wherever the duo takes her will be safe. Her head comes to rest on Leon’s shoulder, a comfortable and steady place to stay for now. She hears the bang of a gunshot from right by her, and then another one. It must be Helena, firing at Simmons. She doesn’t open her eyes to look though, at least until she feels Leon shift her off of his back and onto a flat surface that’s clearly not human.  
  
She glances around to see that she’s inside a train that seems to be moving by some supernatural force. How anyone could be driving this thing at a time like this escapes her. She’s laying across several seats, looking up at Leon. “Where are we going…?” she whispers.  
  
“You’re just gonna stay down here, Helena and I will be up top dealing with Simmons.”  
  
“On top of the train…?”  
  
“Yeah, I’ve done crazier shit in my life. Get some rest down here, don’t worry about me.”  
  
Leon smiles down at Kali before jumping up and grabbing the ledge of the hatch in the train’s ceiling. Helena reaches down to help pull him up, and then they both disappear out of sight. Kali lays her head on the seat and fixes her eyes on the ceiling so she doesn’t cause too much strain to her head. She can hear gunshots ringing through the air and furious shouting from both sides of the fight. She covers her ears and squeezes her eyes shut to try and block out the intense sensory overload coming from every direction, but her ears are still ringing from getting clocked in the head. The throbbing pain echoes in her head with a dull thud, like the sound of a giant bass drum heard from a distance. It’s going to be fine, won’t it? Leon and Helena will finally take Simmons down and everyone he’s hurt will be avenged once and for—  
  
Something crashes down into the train car. Something incomprehensibly large and monstrous. Leon and Helena jump down following it, and before Kali can ask what’s wrong, Helena grabs her and takes off running through the train. “Leon, cover me! I’ve got Kali!” she shouts behind her, and then softer and toward Kali: “Did he hurt you?”  
  
“No… I’m fine.”  
  
“Thank god. We’ll come down here and get you if he does this again. No way in hell are we letting you run.”  
  
Once they’re far enough away, Helena sits down with Kali lying in her lap and pulls out her handgun. “Now let’s take this son of a bitch down.”  
  
Kali watches intently as Helena’s finger squeezes the trigger, firing over and over at this mutated thing that used to be Simmons, but most certainly never used to be human. He stumbles back and then seems to break apart, reforming in a cloud of smoke into a humanoid form riddled with bloody cracks as if he were a vase that’d been broken apart and sloppily glued back together. Leon rushes at the vaguely humanoid thing in front of him and throws a series of punches straight at his head. “This is for Kali, you asshole,” he growls as he throws Simmons back down into the floor of the train. Kali can’t help but smile at that.  
  
“Hmph. You like watching Leon beat someone up for you?” Helena chuckles.  
  
“Yeah. It’s kinda…” Kali pauses to think of the right word. “...Cathartic.”  
  
“Cathartic, huh? I like the way you think.”  
  
A loud blast shakes the train and Kali and Helena both look up to see that nearly the entire opposite side of it has been blown away. Helena jumps up, making sure Kali’s head is comfortable first and then whipping her gun out again. She and Leon both fire incessantly at Simmons, whose mutated form is running at nearly the same speed as the train. Kali covers her ears to block out the noise and slowly lifts her head up to watch what’s going on. The beast running beside the train is firing off some sort of bullets or small projectiles, but his aim just isn’t good enough to hit the two agents. Helena rifles through her hip pouch to find some extra ammo to reload and Leon covers for her, landing a couple of shots at what must be his head and making him fall behind the train.  
  
Just as it appears that they’ve lost him, the train shakes and Leon rushes over and picks Kali up under one arm. “Shit, this guy just doesn’t give up,” he mutters. “Ready to run?”  
  
“Ready.”  
  
Right as Leon’s about to start backing away, the beast forces its way into the train. It growls something distorted that vaguely sounds like _“Nowhere to run now…” _, its inhuman face sporting some kind of maniacal grin.  
  
“I’m gonna have to throw you, kid. Helena, up on top!”  
  
Helena jumps up out of the doorway on top of the train, and Leon grabs Kali’s waist and launches her upwards. She doesn’t see where Helena’s waiting, but she feels someone grab her and pull her up before Leon follows. Unable to keep her balance any longer, Kali wobbles and falls over into Helena’s arms. “Oh… oh, shit… can’t stand up…” she says softly. “Lena…”  
  
“I’ve got you. Just relax.” Helena wraps her arms around Kali, holding her ragdoll-like body up as the two of them watch Leon sprinting away from Simmons on a train on the other side of the road. Leon’s confident in his ability to escape Simmons, navigating the boxes and shipping crates on the train cars before hopping onto the roof and diving for the train Helena and Kali are on. Helena lets go of Kali with one arm, just enough to pull Leon up before she can collapse completely.  
  
“Alright, Kali. Get ready for one of the worst decisions I'm gonna make tonight,” Leon sighs. “Don’t look in front of us.”  
  
Kali doesn’t listen to that advice. She looks in front of them anyway. Directly in front of the train a while down the tracks, the Simmons-beast is charging straight at them. Leon frantically loads one last round into his gun and fires his last shot, before all three of them brace for impact.  
  
Nothing happens, though. The train doesn’t crash… at least, not at first. Kali doesn’t see what’s happening. She just sees the world spinning around her, and then her vision centers on the sky. She’s falling. She can’t see Leon and Helena, and she’s falling.  
  
She lands flat on her back in the water. The landing stings like hell, but it’s a damn good thing she knows her way around water. Before looking out for either of her new friends, she starts swimming toward the dock as fast as she can, gasping for breath every couple of strokes. She’s not sure what’s motivating her to move except for some kind of drive deep inside her. She swims for her life until she reaches the dock, but as soon as she climbs out, she collapses onto the ground, her breaths shallow and her vision blurring again. “Leon…” she whispers. “Helena… where are you?”  
  
As if answering her quiet wishes, Helena resurfaces from the water, taking a moment to squeeze the water out of her hair before picking Kali up. “Oh, god… Kali, are you awake?”  
  
“I’m fine. I swam.”  
  
“What? How did you— I thought you were knocked out!”  
  
“I’m a better swimmer than I am a runner,” Kali remarks, flashing one of her signature teasing smiles.  
  
That’s the first full sentence Helena has heard her say. As Leon climbs out of the water alongside her, she looks absolutely stunned to hear Kali speak so much. “She swam,” she whispers to Leon. “Not sure how.”  
  
“Some people are just made for the water, I guess. Kali, you feeling okay?”  
  
“Not really.”  
  
“That’s promising,” he groans. “At least it washed the blood off your face.”  
  
Kali gives Leon one more weak attempt at her signature smile before making a proud declaration. “I’m gonna sleep now.”  
  
A look of pure horror crosses Helena’s face. “Whoa, hold on, what do you mean, sleep?”  
  
“I mean just sleep.” Kali’s eyes flutter closed and her head rolls over toward Helena’s chest, resting on it like a comfortable little pillow. “Night-night.”  
  
Helena turns to give Leon a horrified look, but he’s busy on the phone. It’s that damn Redfield guy again, that rage-fueled BSAA captain. She sighs and shifts her weight from one leg to the other, waiting impatiently until Leon hangs up the phone and then immediately taking up his entire field of vision with that same horrified look she had on hold before.  
  
“Leon, she just… said she was going to sleep and then closed her eyes! What the hell is that supposed to mean?”  
  
“I don’t know. She seems pretty straightforward… probably just means she’s sleeping.”  
  
“But she looked like she was barely breathing before and she couldn’t get up on her own… how do I know that she’s… that she’s not…”  
  
Leon tilts Kali’s head back and presses two fingers to the corner of her jaw. “She’s got a steady pulse. She clearly needs some rest.”  
  
As the two of them are fussing over Kali’s condition, they’re suddenly snapped out of their worry by the shouting of a BSAA operative. “Come on, you need to evacuate!”  
  
Helena steps forward in front of Leon. “We’re here to help. We’re from the US government. We have a civilian with us who’s been seriously hurt.”  
  
“Then come on, get moving before the zombies get to you!”  
  
The two of them take off running, led by the BSAA operative. The only people following, though, were Leon, Helena, and the unconscious Kali. They rush into a nearby shopping center and slam the door behind them, tearing up the stairs and into a dimly lit hallway. Kali sleeps through it all, not even feeling the bouncing movement of Helena running for her life. Not even the gunshots disturb her as the zombies make their way into the hall, only to be gunned down by Leon and the BSAA operatives before they can escape and slam the door on the monsters for good. Kali sees absolutely none of it.  
  
When the sole civilian of the party’s eyes finally reopen, she’s in the backseat of a BSAA Jeep, lying across Leon and Helena’s laps. “Where… where are we going?” she whispers, her voice hoarse with the dry sting of saltwater.  
  
Helena smiles down at Kali and her sleepy face. “We’re getting away from the C-Virus gas. The driver’s gonna drop us off once we’re out and then we’re gonna make our escape. Okay?”  
  
“Okay…”  
  
The Jeep is surrounded with a bluish cloud of gas that blurs the driver’s vision of the road, but even while he drives at a snail's pace through the streets, Leon and Helena can see things slowly becoming clearer. “We’re almost out,” Helena whispers to Kali. “We’re so close. It’s gonna be okay soon enough.”  
  
The cloud of blue gas finally clears, and the agents and their half-conscious friend exit. There’s a tall barricade in front of them, stopping the car from going any further. There are, however, some parked cars near it, and as many somewhat questionable things often do, it gave Leon an idea. “You see anything we can climb up on?”  
  
Helena climbs onto the hood of one of the cars. “Yeah… there’s enough room for us to stand on that thing. I’ll jump up there and then you just throw Kali up.”  
  
“Jeez, we’re really throwing her around a lot, aren’t we?”  
  
“She seems fine with it.”  
  
Kali just shrugs her shoulders. “It’s alright.”  
  
Helena flashes a smile at Kali and then jumps up onto the barricade, using the slight bouncing of the car as a sort of springboard. “I’m ready to catch her!” she calls down to Leon.  
  
“Alright, this is our biggest throw yet. Here goes nothing.”  
  
Leon flings Kali upward as hard as he can, and Kali instinctively lets out a scream. She can’t see where she’s going or where she might land, but just as she feels herself reach the highest she could go before falling back down, Helena grabs her and pulls her up. “Thank god Leon knows how to throw,” she mutters, before setting Kali down beside her and reaching down to pull Leon up too.  
  
On the other side of the barricade, below where the three of them stand (or lie, taking Kali into consideration), wreckage of various sorts sit in a flaming wall in front of the main road. The only escape route is through a small alley, but the zombies swarming the intersection are the first of their problems to solve. “Goddamnit, how are we gonna get her through this?” Helena sighs.  
  
“We’ll find a way. Let’s get down from here first.”  
  
Helena scoops Kali up again, and the three of them dismount the barricade. Leon whips out a gun once again, this time something shiny and silver that seems to fire with a much more powerful bang than his government-issued handgun. “I’ll keep an eye out for something we can do with Kali,” he says in between shots. “Just… protect her for now.”  
  
The rumble of a helicopter flying low above the trio suddenly alerts all of them, and they look up at the sky in unison. “Someone's up there helping us.” Leon squints up at the helicopter, and his eyes widen in shock when he sees who exactly is controlling the chopper.  
  
“Wait a minute. That’s… Ada.” He thought Ada was dead. That was what that call from Chris was for… to tell him that Ada Wong was dead. Yet piloting that helicopter above him was Ada Wong. He knew exactly what to do.  
  
“Ada!” Leon calls out. “Come down here!” He frantically waves his arms in the air, trying to get the helicopter’s attention. The chopper slowly descends and lands just a few feet in front of Leon and Helena, the pilot not even bothering to stop the engine as the door opens and a tall, slim woman in a red jacket steps out. “Ada… you need to take her. She’s hurt, she needs your help. We can’t keep carrying her around without anything to protect her. Just keep her in the chopper with you.”  
  
“Ada…?” Kali repeats. What a pretty name, for a pretty girl. Had she heard this name before?  
  
The kind-looking black-haired woman smiles down at Kali. “That’s me, all right. Good thing the chopper has a passenger seat. Can you sit up?”  
  
“Mhm.”  
  
“Good. You two, I’ll cover you from above,” Ada says to Leon and Helena, before taking Kali into her arms and carrying her into the helicopter. The passenger seat is surprisingly comfortable, Kali notices as Ada buckles her seatbelt for her. “We’re getting out of here as soon as I take care of some business. I might as well help these two out. I go way back with Leon, you know.”  
  
“Oh… that’s… that’s nice.” Kali offers Ada a weak smile and slumps over toward her.  
  
“Oh… wow, okay, Leon wasn’t kidding when he said you’re hurt, was he? Can you lay down? Across the seats?”  
  
“Yeah…” Kali very ungracefully lays herself down, her head perfectly positioned in Ada’s lap. It’s a quite comfortable headrest, and much needed too with how badly her head is hurting. “Comfy… can I stay here? My head hurts.”  
  
Ada glances down at Kali’s head. On the side of her forehead, just along her hairline, is a swollen bruise with the skin split open in the middle of it. Blood had been gushing out before, but it’s long since washed off in the water, leaving only a few reddish trickles painting her face. “You know what… you’re laying down until we get out of the chopper. Don’t try to sit up, I don’t think your head should move for a while.”  
  
“Good idea.”  
  
“I have those sometimes.”  
  
Kali closes her eyes, just listening to the whirring of the helicopter blades and letting the calm feeling of the vehicle’s movement through the air overcome her. Ada’s quite warm too… she could just fall asleep here, if only the thudding pain in her head would let her concentrate on anything else. For a while, both girls are silent, Ada concentrating on clearing the zombies out of Leon and Helena’s path and then escaping that section of the city and Kali concentrating on keeping her head steady. The silence is stifling for both of them, though… they could only take so much of that heavy, lonely feeling that the quiet brought on.  
  
“So…” Ada says, mostly to break the uncomfortable quiet between her and her passenger. “What are you doing here? You don’t look like you’re from the city.”  
  
“I was looking for my brother. Well… for information on what happened to him. The BSAA wouldn’t tell us whether he was alive or dead… so I went to find out on my own.”  
  
“And what’d you find?”  
  
“Mostly just a bunch of BOWs trying to kill me. Same as anyone else around here.”  
  
“Of course. Were you and your brother close?”  
  
“We were always super close.” Kali wonders how Ada can talk so casually, even as she’s piloting an attack helicopter that’s consistently firing down at whatever’s below and swerving in all different directions. “He was… probably my best friend in the whole world. I didn’t know how to feel when he left home to join the BSAA. I guess this is why I was so scared… because I knew it’d end this way.”  
  
“Well, his death was never confirmed. You know what they say, it’s not over till it’s over. And anyway… I like a girl who keeps going no matter the odds, you know. Mostly because that’s what I would do.”  
  
The helicopter suddenly stops in midair as a deafening roar freezes both Ada and Kali in place. “W-What the hell was that?” Kali exclaims.  
  
“It’s one giant BOW, that’s what it is. I’ll take care of it, and so will Leon and Helena. You’re just gonna stay safe in here.”  
  
“I’ve never been in a helicopter before, you know…”  
  
Ada glances down at Kali and cracks a tiny smile. She rarely smiles genuinely, but something about this sweet girl just makes her want to smile. “Well, I hope this’ll be a good first experience for you. Fighting a BOW… always a great activity for your first helicopter flight.”  
  
“Mhm. Definitely.” Kali would roll her eyes, but her head hurts way too much already. The helicopter seems to be hovering in midair now, the firing from its machine guns not stopping for a second. “Is this the, uh… the thing that used to be Simmons?”  
  
“Yes, yes it is. Of course he turned into a monster,” Ada chuckles. “He always was one.”  
  
“He sure was when we met. Imagine waking up in some creepy basement and the guy who kidnapped you announces that he’s the National Security Advisor. What the hell kind of nightmare fuel is that?”  
  
“Are you really surprised that a man with so much power would use it to get away with things like that?”  
  
Huh. That is a very good point. “You know… I’m not surprised at all, actually. Of course he’d do something like that if he thought he could get away with it.”  
  
“You know, he’s not just some government suit.” Ada leans to the side and the helicopter takes a sharp turn. “He’s the leader of this cult called The Family. They’ll do whatever they can to keep the United States at the top of the food chain, just because it benefits them.”  
  
“A— A cult?” Kali nearly sits up in surprise, but of course, she’s stopped by Ada’s hand before she can move too far. “How many of this cult’s members are in the government?”  
  
“We don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows. Maybe I’ll do some searching on my own once this hell of a city is taken care of.”  
  
“Can you… tell me what you find?”  
  
“Sure. I don’t care who this information gets out to. It’ll be better if more people know.”  
  
The helicopter stops and then swerves violently, the engine roaring as it speeds up. “Whoa, where are you going?”  
  
“Stay down. We’re following Leon and Helena.” Ada grips the steering wheel and her eyes narrow with determination. Like hell will she let this Lovecraftian beast escape and wreak more havoc on this collapsing city. She knows she’s scaring Kali a bit, but now’s not the time to try and comfort her. She’s way too busy trying to save the damn world from the same man who ruined hers.  
  
The helicopter finally slows to a stop and Kali slowly sits up. “Where are we…?”  
  
“Just another part of the Quad Tower. You’re going back to Helena.”  
  
“Wha—“  
  
Ada grabs Kali’s waist with one arm and fires off her grappling hook with the other, swinging both of them upwards toward the sill of a broken window. When did they even get here anyway? The chopper is perched on a rooftop helipad nearby, and surrounding them are the four peaks of the Quad Tower— its namesake, of course.  
  
“Ohhhh god, okay, this is high—“  
  
“Don’t be so scared of heights.”  
  
The grappling hook pulls the pair up to their destination and Ada sets Kali inside before disappearing downwards again. Kali slowly sits up and looks around to see that she appears to be in a destroyed office building, littered with broken glass and clouded with smoke. “Hello…? Someone?” she calls out. “Lena, are you here?”  
  
A figure appears in the smoke and rushes toward Kali. It’s Helena, just as Ada had promised. “Oh, thank god you’re here. Hold on, I have something for you to take.” Helena kneels down beside Kali and pulls out a small metal container. Inside it are several green pills that look almost like mints. “Take one of these. You’re just going to have to dry-swallow it.”  
  
“What are they…?”  
  
“They’ll make you feel better. Just trust me.”  
  
Kali takes one of the pills and squints suspiciously at it before putting it on the tip of her tongue. If Helena says it’ll help, it must be safe. She squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath in before swallowing it dry. It burns a little on the way down, but as soon as it’s down her throat, she already seems to feel a bit better. “Whoa… okay, that felt weird.”  
  
“You get used to it. This shit got me and Leon through the Tall Oaks outbreak.” Helena ruffles Kali’s hair and then stands back up, leaving Kali to sit on the ground beside her. “You just stay there. I’ll cover Leon and Ada.”  
  
“Leon and Ada? What are they doing?”  
  
Helena grabs a large rifle that’d been strapped to her back. “Dealing with Simmons. He’s still alive and kicking.”  
  
“Ada told me he’s some kind of cult leader. Did you know about—“  
  
“I know more about the Family than anyone should.” Helena doesn’t look away from the scope of the sniper rifle.  
  
“So does everyone know this except me?”  
  
“Not everyone. But a lot of us who have had problems with him know about it. He doesn’t know how to handle anything except with violence. He did the same thing to me and my sister.”  
  
“Was it a younger sister…?”  
  
Helena looks back at Kali with a shocked expression. “Yeah… Deborah was about the same age as you. How’d you know?”  
  
“You just seem like the big sister type.”  
  
Helena sighs and fixes her gaze on what she can see through the sniper rifle’s scope. “You really remind me of Deborah, you know. You two would’ve gotten along if you ever got the chance to meet.”  
  
“So is that why you like me…?” Kali asks. “Because I’m like Deborah?”  
  
“I guess. But I also… I guess I just don’t want anything to happen to you. We’ve lost enough survivors that we were supposed to help.” The rhythmic click-bang of the sniper rifle stops for a minute so Helena can reload. “And at the end of the day, it all comes back to Simmons. He’s the one who caused everything you’re seeing right now.”  
  
Both girls go quiet as they watch Leon and Ada on the bridge far below. Simmons seems to be changing forms more often now, going between the centaur-like monster they faced on the train and his broken humanlike form. He never seemed human, even before the mutation. “Is it… wrong if I say I hope he dies?” Kali says quietly.  
  
“Not at all. I started wishing for his death a long time ago.” The bang of the sniper rifle firing punctuates Helena’s sentence. “Shit, do you see Leon anywhere?”  
  
Kali crawls over toward the ledge and looks out. Her vision is a bit blurred and it hurts to strain herself, but she can only make out two moving figures. “I… I don’t think so. I see Ada, and the Simmons-monster thing.”  
  
“Goddamnit. Where the hell is he?”  
  
“I don’t know… just keep shooting. I’m sure he’s alright.” Kali’s actually not quite sure about that. She’s just saying it to reassure herself.  
  
Helena reloads the sniper rifle and fires a series of quick shots straight at the monster’s head. Her breaths turn sharp and her whole body tenses up. “Come on… shit, just turn back already so I can see better,” she mutters.  
  
“Maybe hitting him in a more sensitive spot will do it… do headshots take out giant horrifying monsters?”  
  
“I’ll try it, just to humor you.” Helena shoves one last bullet into the rifle, puts it up, and pulls the trigger. Kali doesn’t see where it goes, but she sees the Simmons-beast skid backwards and then go up in a cloud of smoke that obscures her vision. The same cloud that she'd seen every time he changed forms before. “I bet that was it. I should listen to you more often.”  
  
“Heh… maybe so.”  
  
When Simmons returns to his humanoid form, Kali can just barely make out his figure standing on the very edge of the bridge, where Leon is hanging on by the very dregs of his strength. His grip is somehow strong enough to stay holding on, no matter how desperately Simmons just wants him to give in and let go. She knows he wouldn’t let go… he’s too strong for that.  
  
Up in the window, Kali and Helena both let out a sigh of relief. “Come on, Leon, Ada…” Kali whispers. “You can take him out now. I know you can do it.”  
  
Helena leans forward and makes a perplexed face. “What’s Ada doing?”  
  
“I… I don’t know. I can’t really see. She’s… going towards him. Is she gonna hit him or something?”  
  
“It’s an arrow. She took an arrow out of her crossbow. I think she’s gonna try to impale him with it.”  
  
Kali’s eyes widen in horror as she sees Ada approaching Simmons. She can’t fathom how this could possibly end well. A close-range attack on someone who could mutate at any second… shouldn’t they know that’s a horrible idea? Tears bubble up in the corners of her eyes, but despite her vision being blurred by the incoming waterworks, she can hear something… something that gives her just a bit of hope for the two heroes.  
  
“You can’t always get what you want, Simmons.” Ada’s voice is sweet as honey as she thrusts the arrow into his side, making him lose his grip on Leon so he can climb back up. Ada grabs onto Simmons and ever-so-casually jumps off the side of the bridge, just as if she was jumping off a diving board. “Let’s call this closure.”  
  
As soon as Ada jumps and takes Simmons down, something hooks onto the side of the bridge and she swings right back up, this time without her pursuer. It’s her grappling hook, which she’d pulled out right before jumping, just quick enough that no one would have seen it. As she comes back up onto the bridge, she sticks the grappling hook back into her pocket and takes one last look down at the ground far below her. “That should take care of him,” she says with a prideful smirk. “What are you waiting for, Leon? You should get to safety.”  
  
Leon regains his footing on the bridge and straightens the collar of his shirt as if he hasn’t been quite literally clinging onto life just moments before. “Wait, Ada… before you leave. I have one more thing we need you to do before you go. It’s nothing major, we just need your help.”  
  
“Oh, yeah? What is it?”  
  
Just as Leon is about to explain the situation, Helena jumps down to the bridge from her perch in the open window, holding Kali close to her chest as she rushes over to Leon and Ada. “I gave her an herb, but she’s still kinda out of it,” she says between sharp inhales.  
  
“Take her with you the rest of the way.” Leon glances over at the half-conscious Kali. “She was being held hostage by Simmons. If we get her out of here alive, she might have some information that could help our case.”  
  
Kali is suddenly thrust into her new guardian’s arms, and Ada stumbles back in surprise before adjusting to her weight. “Ada?” Kali asks, her dilated eyes blinking up at the face of the woman who’s holding her. “You’re… still here for me.”  
  
“Yes, I am. I guess I just couldn’t leave you behind. I’ll take you while Leon and Helena handle what’s left of this place.”  
  
“Wait… you’re not just any Ada. I remember you. I remember your name.” The gears are spinning in Kali’s mind. “Are you… Ada Wong?”  
  
“Yeah… how’d you know?”  
  
“Simmons told me about you. When… when he kidnapped me.”  
  
“God, what a piece of shit. Well, he won’t hurt you again so long as I’m around. I’ve got you, kiddo.”  
  
Kali smiles and nods her head affirmatively. This must be the real Ada… not the clone Simmons made. She likes the real Ada. And they’d understand each other too, wouldn’t they? They’d both been the victim of a man who’d gone from mostly harmless unkindness to life-ruining violence just because of a romantic rejection. “Mhm… thanks. Where are Leon and ‘Lena going?”  
  
“They’re going to make sure everything’s gonna be okay in the city and then they’ll pick up the chopper I left for them and get to safety.”  
  
“Will they remember to come for me?”  
  
“Of course they will. They wouldn’t just leave you here. Leon is too heroic for that. Now, let’s go find you some shelter.”  
  
A strange zipping noise comes from beside Kali, and suddenly she and Ada are flying above the wreckage of the tower. The view would be stunning if only the city wasn’t in flames and littered with collapsing buildings and totaled vehicles. “You look out for a good place. I’ll keep us swinging up here.”  
  
Kali looks down, squinting at the buildings below her. Almost all of them are destroyed, except a small one-story office building with its roof miraculously still standing. “Down there!” she exclaims, nudging Ada to look down. “A building that looks safe.”  
  
“You’re a good lookout.” The two girls are lowered down to the roof of the building, and Ada glances around until she finds a doorway leading down into the building. “Alright, we’re gonna jump. Actually… I’m jumping. I don’t quite trust your body to take the impact.”  
  
“Then… what will I do?”  
  
“This.” Ada scoops Kali up bridal-style and kicks the door open, bending down and jumping into it while carrying Kali down with her. “What’s your name, by the way?”  
  
“Kali…”  
  
“Okay, Kali. Then I’ll go tell Leon that Kali is in here, and he’ll come back soon to take you somewhere safe.”  
  
“Wait… I have one more question.”  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“If I make it out alive… will you come visit me?”  
  
Ada can’t help but laugh at such a sweet, innocent question. “Of course I will. You stay safe.” She sets Kali down and pats her head before latching her grappling hook onto the doorway up to the roof and zipping away into the night.  
  
The door slams closed, leaving Kali alone inside the walls where the sound of the hellscape unfolding outside is muffled, but not quite silenced. It’s almost peaceful in here. She’s sitting alone in the middle of an unfurnished, empty room as the city falls apart around her, but it’s peaceful. That’s just how it’s always been, hasn’t it? Kali, sweet, seemingly harmless Kali, surrounded by chaos and destruction. Hasn’t she always been the common denominator? She’s always been told that she’s a life-ruiner, a heartbreaker, a harbinger of chaos in men’s lives, but at the same time, a freak whose name is like a curse and whose presence brings people’s social credits down. It’s just as Simmons said… her own decisions were what brought her here.  
  
There’s a window in the front of the building. In front of it stands another, taller building, but if she looks out, she can see a glimpse of the sky above. If a great fire breaks out or something explodes, she’d be able to see and maybe even take cover in time. She crawls toward the window and squints out, hoping by some shred of good luck that she might see one of her new friends.  
  
In what little she can see of the sky, a towering monster of a BOW flies above. She’s never seen anything like it before. It has the head of a fly, but several more legs than any insect would. It must be the size of a hundred humans. She stumbles back and covers her mouth with her hands, stifling the startled cry that came out of her mouth without warning. She can’t believe she hadn’t seen this thing before… unless it had just appeared. Maybe that would be the end of the city, falling at the hands of some gigantic bug. What a way to go, straight out of a 1970s B-movie. “If this thing is so huge, Leon and Helena must see it, right?” she reassures herself, her voice bouncing off the bare brick walls. “Maybe they’re fighting it… and so is Ada. Maybe they’ll save the world from this giant thing… and then save me too.”  
  
A powerful flash of lightning illuminates the sky, and for a second, she thinks she sees the giant bug BOW with some kind of spear-like weapon sticking out of it. That must be Leon and Helena’s doing. Wherever Ada is, she couldn’t possibly have gotten all the way over there in such a short time. “Come on, guys!” she cheers, her words echoing around the walls. “You can do it!” Although she’s the only one who can hear herself, she hopes her two heroes know that someone out there is cheering them on.  
  
As the storm kicks up throughout the city, a draft floats in through a window and sends a chill through her body. She’s still soaking wet from her little swim, and the wind on her cold, wet skin and her drenched clothes makes her feel like she’s freezing over. At least the orange glow in the air is fading away, presumably from the rain putting out all those fires that’d broken out in the streets. Lightning strikes far away and the sky turns a bright white for a split second. Of course… the weapon that was used on that bug-like BOW must have gathered electricity from the lightning and zapped the monster with full force. It could very well have been a lightning rod that had fallen from a nearby skyscraper, arriving at the agents’ feet as a perfectly sized spike to impale their enemy with. “Thank god for the lightning,” Kali laughs. She’s never liked thunderstorms… but tonight, it might just be the thing that’ll save her life.  
  
Several minutes pass until the next lightning strike arrives. Kali stares up at the sky, not even daring to pull her eyes away from it for a minute. The giant BOW appears once more, surrounded by a surge of electricity, and then falls away into the darkness. Had that last strike killed it, or would it return to terrorize the city even more? If only she could see enough of it to be sure.  
  
For a little while, everything seems still. But of course, nothing should ever be assumed in a situation like this. She draws in a deep breath and slowly lets it out, feeling the air leave her body like a deflating balloon as she exhales. Leon and Helena will be able to handle this, won’t they? They have to be. She can’t imagine them losing a battle. But of course, as soon as the stillness finally seems to settle into her body, the fly’s head appears once more in the distance. “Come on, guys, come on…” she says toward the sky, her voice soft and shaky. “You can do this. You can kill this thing and save the city. Come on, please…”  
  
As if Leon and Helena heard her wishes, the glimpse she caught of the BOW only lasts for a moment before it disappears. No… not just disappears as in vanishing into the night like it did after the second lightning strike. Disappearing for good, going up in flames, in a blaze of glory that’d surely take down a few buildings along with it. The last scene of this gigantic fly’s short life is of its glowing red eyes flickering with fear, and then the echoes of a sound unlike anything Kali had ever heard before shake the ground. A fiery explosion brightens the sky, and she sees the last shadows of the monstrous insect fade away for the last time. Some sort of rocket must have been shot at it to blow it up once and for all… but that thing wouldn’t go down without taking quite a bit of the city down with it.  
  
A tremendous blast almost like an earthquake shakes the building and all of its surroundings as the aftershock of the final battle hits the pavement, and a series of crashes surround her. She rolls over and shields her head until the only noise coming from close by is the ringing in her ears. Thank goodness nothing landed on her. She slowly pulls herself up, leaning on her side and squinting out the now-destroyed window. The entire wall is gone too. Another blast follows, and the remains of a nearby building go flying. Whatever happened to the BOW as it fell seems to have created a domino effect outside. Everything is just a haze of ash and flames and destruction. As she strains her neck to look out at the chaos, something suddenly flies into the wreckage of the building and knocks her down hard. She tries to sit up to see what hit her, but she can’t.  
  
Oh god. She can’t get up.  
  
Ow. Owww fuck fuck fuck. Can’t move. Oh god, can’t move. Is that blood? That feels like blood. It smells like blood too. Ohhh no, what happened?  
  
Kali tries once again to pull herself up, but whatever hit her is in her way. No, not just in her way… in her. It must be some sort of debris from the explosion that’s been lodged deep into her side. She can’t turn herself enough to see what it is, but she’s not so sure she wants to. She can feel her blood soaking through her clothes. Her arms give out and she collapses onto the floor. Her breathing turns heavy and labored, as she reminds herself with every exhale to stay alive, if nothing else, just so that when the helicopter returns for her, her new friends wouldn’t find a corpse waiting for them.  
  
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Maybe if she tries to tune out the pain, she’d forget it exists. She’s done it before… but this is worse than anything she’s ever felt. She just needs to try her hardest. Maybe imagining Leon and Helena coming for her will help. Maybe Leon would carry her on his back again, and Helena would help her into her seat in the helicopter, and maybe… maybe she’d wake up in a hospital surrounded by the people she loves… and everything would be okay…  
  
Right? Won’t it? Won’t everything be okay?  
  
When she regains consciousness, everything sounds a bit quieter. She can’t tell whether the city is finally stilling or whether she’s losing her grasp on life. Whether it’s been ten seconds or ten minutes, she’d never have any clue. She tries to sit up, but a searing pain cuts through her torso, stopping her from moving. Of course… that thing is still sticking out of her side. She can see a small glimpse of the night sky, a deep bluish-gray from the ash and light pollution. The whirring of a helicopter’s blades can be heard in the distance, and as the sound gets louder, she realizes it’s coming for her. In the tiny sliver of the sky that she can see into, a small rescue helicopter flies overhead, low to the ground like it’s about to land. “Oh, please be coming for me…” she whispers. “Please…”  
  
To her great relief, the helicopter lands nearby with a loud thud and the blades slow to a stop. She can’t sit up enough to see who it is, but she’s sure it’s either Ada or Leon and Helena. She tries to lift her head enough to see just a tinier glimpse outside the rubble, but she can’t see who it is or even where in relation to her the helicopter landed.  
  
“Don’t startle her. She might turn over and push that thing further into her,” one of the voices instructs. Kali instantly recognizes that voice: it’s Helena. Helena came back for her.  
  
“Lena…?” she whimpers, her worlds barely intelligible. “Is… is that you?”  
  
Helena stands over Kali, examining her injuries. “Don’t move,” she sighs. “It’s just a piece of metal.”  
  
She tries to sit up, but the object sticking out of her side sends a flash of pain through her body. “Oh… fuck, that hurts.”  
  
“No, no, don’t sit up. Leon, lift her up.”  
  
Leon sighs and bends down toward Kali. “Okay, arms up, kid.”  
  
Kali lazily lifts her arms up and Leon picks her up under her arms as if he’s picking up a small animal before handing her off to Helena.  
  
“Take this thing out of me...” she whispers to Helena when she’s settled into her arms. “Please...?”  
  
“I can’t do that right now, you’ll bleed too much. You’ve done enough of that already. We’re gonna get you into the helicopter and drop you off at a safe location, and then you’ll get to a hospital from there.”  
  
Faint whispers of a conversation float over toward her. Leon and Helena are clearly talking about something they don’t want her to hear, but they don’t sound so serious anymore like they did before. Their voices have softened and they both look visibly more relaxed. Finally saving the world can do that to someone, she supposes. She smiles weakly up at Helena, a drop of blood rolling down her chin from her cracked lip.  
  
“I wanna... go back home.”  
  
“You’re gonna be back home soon. First, we’ve just got to get in the helicopter. Okay?”  
  
“Okay...”  
  
Helena holds Kali tightly against her as she carries her into the helicopter. There’s only two seats inside, so she just lays Kali across her lap. She’s small enough that she can curl up comfortably in a little ball. To Helena, the gesture almost seems… sisterly. Kali was a little sister too, and Helena was a big sister. Neither of them knew it quite yet, but they both had what the other needed: Kali needed a big sibling, and Helena needed a little one.  
  
“Take out... the thing,” Kali whimpers when she’s settled into Helena’s lap.  
  
“What thing?”  
  
“The metal thing… it hurts.”  
  
Helena sighs and shakes her head. “You’ll bleed out. It won’t be too long, okay?”  
  
“Is there... a first aid kit?”  
  
Leon glances behind him and frowns at the apparent lack of a first aid kit. “In here? Probably not.”  
  
“My jacket... take my jacket off.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Use it to put pressure... and absorb the blood.”  
  
“Are you sure about this?”  
  
“I’m sure. I... I know a thing or two about first aid.” Sure, that might not be the recommendation a medical professional would give. But Kali doesn’t care right now. She just wants this thing out of her, and she knows the basics of caring for an open wound, so it won’t be too disastrous… hopefully.  
  
Helena sighs defeatedly and lifts Kali up enough to carefully pull off her jacket. She looks so beaten up underneath it… poor girl, she’ll probably be stuck in a hospital for quite a while once they get back home. “Ready?” she asks.  
  
“Ready.”  
  
In one quick motion, Helena yanks out the piece of metal lodged in Kali’s side, throws it behind her onto the floor of the helicopter, and shoves Kali’s balled-up jacket down onto the wound, applying as much pressure as she could to stifle the intense flow of blood. Kali shrieks in pain as it’s pulled out and then takes a sharp, gasping breath in once it’s removed. “It’s out,” Helena reassures her. “It’s all good now.”  
  
Kali’s breath slows to a calm rhythm. The pain in her side may still be radiating through her body, but the overwhelming relief that she’s alive is a thousand times more powerful. She’s going to be okay.  
  
The helicopter lifts off the ground and the three survivors ascend into the sky. Kali feels a wave of sleepiness wash over her, likely a side effect of how relieved she is. She’s sure the city is collapsing below her, but she wasn’t lost in the remains. The questionable decisions of Karina Macauley did not lead her to a tragic death, leaving her as nothing more than a symbol of impulsivity. It led her to new friends, new love, and a warm resting spot on Helena’s lap. And despite everything she’d been through, she knows she’ll be okay.______________


End file.
